Blair at Camp David

12:00AM GMT 23 Feb 2001

THE Prime Minister will no doubt strike up an amicable relationship with President Bush when they meet for the first time today.

But the real test of their friendship lies in the challenge to American hegemony by other members of the European Union. Iraq, the EU rapid reaction force and Washington's determination to develop national missile defence are already bones of contention. On these, Mr Blair believes he can act as a transatlantic mediator. Before a joint session of the Canadian parliament in Ottawa yesterday, he sought to refute those who argue that Britain has to choose between Europe and North America. "We will have the best of both worlds," he said. "We will give up neither relationship. We will make them both work." In the same vein, he suggested a political initiative to overcome differences between the EU and the North American Free Trade Agreement. By so doing, he was seeking to project himself, not least to the British electorate, as a statesman who could reach out beyond Europe and represent the views of each side to the other. The reality is somewhat different. Britain has excluded itself from the core European project, economic and monetary union. In Washington, it is confronted with an administration that does not share its wishy-washy "progressive" beliefs. The Prime Minister could well find himself stranded in mid-Atlantic.

On Iraq, his stock in Washington has risen with the joint Anglo-American strikes against air defences on the outskirts of Baghdad last week. Yet it is remarkable that George Bush and Tony Blair neither consulted each other before the operation nor have spoken about it since. It may have been a more robust interpretation of a policy inherited from Bill Clinton. Nevertheless, at a time when the will to contain Saddam Hussein is fading, it was of great political significance. In similar circumstances, the Prime Minister and Mr Clinton would surely have been on the phone to one another. Failure to talk suggests that the new administration takes British support for granted.

American unease about the potential of the rapid reaction force to undermine the Atlantic alliance has not abated. The meeting last week between Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defence, and Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative defence spokesman, served notice on New Labour that a concept it had launched with the French in 1998 needed stringent monitoring lest it duplicate the work of Nato. On national missile defence, the Prime Minister has remained studiously non-committal but, despite opposition to the idea from the Continent, it is inconceivable that he would refuse to co-operate with Washington in upgrading the Fylingdales early warning station in North Yorkshire.

Although the atmosphere at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, may be relaxed, it is unlikely to develop into the easy political intimacy that Mr Blair enjoyed with Mr Clinton. Mr Bush's foreign policy is based on a hard-headed calculation of what is in the national interest. To win presidential trust, the Prime Minister will have to demonstrate that he can serve that end. He is likely to find himself hopelessly torn between wishing both to maintain the special relationship with Washington and to be at the heart of Europe. Failure to acknowledge a choice does not mean it goes away.